An Integrated Model for Customer Relationship Management: An Analysis and Empirical Study

Ensuring customer satisfaction and maintaining long‐term relationships with customers have become essential for survival among competitive service industries. The present study addresses this need by proposing a conceptually integrated four‐phase model that incorporates elements of customer relationship management (CRM) and customer satisfaction (represented by the extended American Customer Satisfaction Index model). Then, this study formulates structural equation modeling to test various research hypotheses related to the effect of the CRM initiative. An empirical study of 143 leading Taiwanese service firms distributed among seven service industries was conducted. The implementation levels of various constructs, input (customer knowledge), service provision (customer interactions), output quality, perceived quality, perceived value, perception of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, purchasing intention, and profits of CRM are assessed in a range of service industries by means of a questionnaire survey and in‐depth interviews. The results of the empirical study reveal statistically significant influences among various constructs of the CRM integrated model. These results also represent a useful reference for managers of service organizations that could be used to improve the profitability and implementation level of CRM. The present study represents an important investigation in the development of an integrated CRM implementation system for service industries. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Investigation into waiting time,self‐service technology,and customer loyalty: The mediating role of waiting time in satisfaction

This study examines customer satisfaction with waiting time (WT) and customer loyalty (CL) relationships in the airline industry. The mediating influence of waiting time satisfaction (WTS) in the self‐service technology (SST) and CL relationship was also examined. Seven hundred fifty structured questionnaires were administered at Sabiha Gökçen, and Instabul international airports in Turkey and partial least square–structural equation modeling were employed for the model analysis. The findings reveal that SST, perceived, retrospective, and prospective WTs are major determinants of WTS. Furthermore, SST and WTS were found to have a linear and significant positive influence on CL. Therefore, this study suggests that the airport management should identify the causes of WT, make the waiting environment conducive for the customers, make the WT inconsequential to the customers, and enhance their loyalty to the airport.     

Toward an Integrated Decision-Making Model for Consumer Electronic

The study proposes an integrated comprehensive consumer decision-making model by extending the customer value, satisfaction, and loyalty framework to include customer experience as an antecedent to creating value and enhancing satisfaction toward technology continuance intention. Our study incorporates perspectives from information systems (IS) and service marketing, where customer value (hedonic and utilitarian) theory and literature on customer experience with perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness as its dimensions are found to be drivers of technology continuance intention for consumer electronics. In addition, partial least squares results from 370 smartphone users indicate that within consumer electronics, price negatively moderates the relationship between utilitarian value and satisfaction but not with hedonic value and satisfaction. Contributions of findings and implications are discussed to provide references for consumer electronic firms in IS and service marketing.     

The relationships among service quality,perceived value,customer satisfaction,and post-purchase intention in mobile value-added services

The purposes of this study are to construct an instrument to evaluate service quality of mobile value-added services and have a further discussion of the relationships among service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and post-purchase intention. Structural equation modeling and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data collected from college and graduate students of 15 major universities in Taiwan. The main findings are as follows: (1) service quality positively influences both perceived value and customer satisfaction; (2) perceived value positively influences on both customer satisfaction and post-purchase intention; (3) customer satisfaction positively influences post-purchase intention; (4) service quality has an indirect positive influence on post-purchase intention through customer satisfaction or perceived value; (5) among the dimensions of service quality, “customer service and system reliability” is most influential on perceived value and customer satisfaction, and the influence of “content quality” ranks second; (6) the proposed model is proven with the effectiveness in explaining the relationships among service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and post-purchase intention in mobile added-value services.     

Adding clicks to bricks: A study of the consequences on customer loyalty in a service context

With the explosion of the Internet many firms are incorporating technology into their marketing and operations and are adopting a multichannel strategy. The impact of this strategy has been especially high in the services area, which has traditionally relied on close, personal contact between customers and employees. This study explores how overall customer loyalty is built as a consequence of the value provided by each channel (offline and online). It also analyzes the moderating role of complexity of services used and customers’ Internet access in the service value–loyalty link. The model is tested with a sample of 302 multichannel financial services customers who use both the offline (traditional) and the online channel. Results show that offline perceived service value increases online perceived value; offline value has a stronger effect on overall loyalty than online value; and online service complexity and Internet adoption moderate the influence of service value on overall loyalty. Implications for management and theory are discussed.     

Customer satisfaction and loyalty analysis with classification algorithms and Structural Equation Modeling

Businesses can maintain their effectiveness as long as they have satisfied and loyal customers. Customer relationship management provides significant advantages for companies especially in gaining competitiveness. In order to reach these objectives primarily companies need to identify and analyze their customers. In this respect, effective communication and commitment to customers and changing market conditions is of great importance to increase the level of satisfaction and loyalty. To evaluate this situation, level of customer satisfaction and loyalty should be measured correctly with a comprehensive approach. In this study, customers are investigated in 4 main groups according to their level of satisfaction and loyalty with a criteria and group based analysis with a new method. We use classification algorithms in WEKA programming software and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with LISREL tools together to analyze the effect of each satisfaction and loyalty criteria in a satisfaction–loyalty matrix and extend the customer satisfaction and loyalty post-analysis research bridging the gap in this field of research. To convert developed conceptual thought to experimental study, white goods industry is exemplified. 15 criteria are used for evaluation in 4 customer groups and a satisfaction–loyalty survey developed by experts is applied to 200 customers with face-to-face interviews. As a result of the study, a customer and criteria grouping method is created with high performance classification methods and good fit structural models. In addition, results are evaluated for developing a customer strategy improvement tool considering method outcomes.     

A methodology to map customer complaints and measure customer satisfaction and loyalty

In this study, an analysis was conducted for the relationships between the main components of customer relationship management (CRM) and customer complaints in the domain of logistics and transport. Today, complaints and the handling of complaints play a pivotal role in customer relationships. Moreover, companies are reluctant to admit that they have difficulties with customers’ complaints, but as yet there appears to be no complete solution to this issue. To remedy this situation, customer complaints must be comprehensively collected and analysed. Issues must be classified, and timely solutions must be developed. In this paper, a conceptual framework is proposed including mathematical models, hypothesised relationships, perceived value and interactivity between customer, business and the system, as well as customer satisfaction analytics. The framework will address the relationship between customer satisfaction issues, loyalty and customer acquisition and estimate customer satisfaction and loyalty. For the purpose of analysis, this study uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches. For data collection, a survey questionnaire was distributed to 60 Fremantle Port logistics and transport customers. For the quantitative approach, linear and nonlinear modelling is adopted. Using the model, we are able to address the shortcomings of CRM technology, and tackle the issues of loyalty improvement and customer acquisition. Finally, based on nonlinear modelling and using a fuzzy inference system, namely the Takagi–Sugeno-type approach, we defined fuzzy rules, by means of which we ascertain the relationship between customer satisfaction and the main relevant variables.     

Consumer perception of interface quality, security, and loyalty in electronic commerce

Customer interface quality, perceived security, and customer loyalty are critical factors for success of an e-commerce website; however, the relationships among them are not fully understood. We proposed a model for testing the relationships among them and the important outcomes of the site: switching costs and customer loyalty. Data was collected to test the model using a web-based survey, and empirical analyses were performed using SEM. The analytical results demonstrated that customer interface quality and perceived security positively affected customer satisfaction and switching costs, and thus customer loyalty to an e-commerce website. Specifically, our study showed that switching costs positively moderated the effect of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty; this moderating effect is discussed.     

Customer participation,value co-creation and customer loyalty – A case of airline online check-in system

Information communication technologies and self-service technologies, such as self-check-in kiosks or online check-in systems, are widely used in the air transport industry. This study proposes a conceptual model to investigate the relationships among customer participation, co-created values and customer loyalty in an air transport context, and empirically tests the model by using questionnaire survey data collected from Taiwanese airline passengers. In particular, three perceived values (i.e. enjoyment value, economic value and relational value) are specified to represent the passengers' co-created values. The empirical results support the following hypotheses. Customer participation in using an online check-in system is positively related to all three values, which further lead to satisfaction with respect to the system. System satisfaction is also related to satisfaction with respect to the company, and both system satisfaction and company satisfaction have positive effects on customer loyalty.     

Expectation-based coopetition approach to service experience design

Service experience design is a key issue in the service industry. Satisfactory service experiences provide customers with good memories and increase customer satisfaction, thus increasing customer loyalty and service provider profitability. However, providing customers with quality service experiences requires considering numerous factors, and thus is a complex and difficult issue both in academia and in real service contexts. Customer satisfaction results from the difference between customer perceptions and customer expectations. Hence, customer expectation management is important in delivering quality service experiences. Additionally, a competitive relationship exists among different service providers as well as between service providers and customers. The service experience delivery process can be regarded as a value co-creation process for service providers and customers who can implement either a competitive or cooperative strategy based on their goals and needs. This study accordingly presents an expectation based coopetition approach by using a real exhibition data of AutoTronics 2009 for simulations. The evaluation results show that this expectation-based coopetition approach can help service providers design and deliver quality service experiences and co-create value with customers, yielding a high performance ecosystem.     

Factors influencing consumers’ repurchase behavior on fresh food e-commerce platforms: An empirical study

The e-commerce of fresh commodities keeps being adaptive to the change of consumer consumption attitudes and behavior in the current era of global economy. In the fierce competition of the industry, how to attract and retain customers more efficiently and increase consumer repurchase behavior is a long-term concern for fresh food e-commerce platforms. This research aims to focus on how the fresh e-commerce platforms can reduce consumer conversion to other forms of purchase and increase consumer repurchase. In this paper a research model is constructed whereby a set of perceived value scales is generated to evaluate consumer repurchase behavior. Data from a sample of 515 consumers is collected through a web-based questionnaire, and structural equation modeling is used to test the research hypotheses and empirically investigate the factors and internal mechanisms influencing repurchase behavior on fresh e-commerce platforms. Results from the analysis show that the product quality and product price from the product-side, perceived ease of use, reliability, response speed and convenience from the service-side, and subjective norms of the consumer personal factors impose significant effects on consumer satisfaction. consumer satisfaction plays a key mediating role in consumer repurchase behavior. Guidance and suggestions for the operation processes of e-commerce platforms are developed based on these key factors to cultivate customer loyalty and attract potential customers more specifically. Moreover, the examination of the factors from the three dimensions promotes the e-commerce platforms to raise their service level by enhancing their supply chain as the bottom rocks of the platform enterprises.     

Development,analysis and applications of a quantitative methodology for assessing customer satisfaction using evolutionary optimization

Consumer-oriented companies are getting increasingly more sensitive about customer's perception of their products, not only to get a feedback on their popularity, but also to improve the quality and service through a better understanding of design issues for further development. However, a consumer's perception is often qualitative and is achieved through third party surveys or the company's recording of after-sale feedback through explicit surveys or warranty based commitments. In this paper, we consider an automobile company's warranty records for different vehicle models and suggest a data mining procedure to assign a customer satisfaction index (CSI) to each vehicle model based on the perceived notion of the level of satisfaction of customers. Based on the developed CSI function, customers are then divided into satisfied and dissatisfied customer groups. The warranty data are then clustered separately for each group and analyzed to find possible causes (field failures) and their relative effects on customer's satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) for a vehicle model. Finally, speculative introspection has been made to identify the amount of improvement in CSI that can be achieved by the reduction of some critical field failures through better design practices. Thus, this paper shows how warranty data from customers can be utilized to have a better perception of ranking of a product compared to its competitors in the market and also to identify possible causes for making some customers dissatisfied and eventually to help percolate these issues at the design level. This closes the design cycle loop in which after a design is converted into a product, its perceived level of satisfaction by customers can also provide valuable information to help make the design better in an iterative manner. The proposed methodology is generic and novel, and can be applied to other consumer products as well.     

决策树技术在医院住院客户划分中的应用

本文以省妇幼保健院历史的住院业务数据为样本,通过数据挖掘的决策树建模方法建立其住院客户的划分模型,得到分类规则,在此基础上将住院客户划分为不同的群体。通过对客户的划分及其特征分析,医院可清楚的了解重点客户并给予重点客户群体以按需要定制的个性化服务,这将极大提升这部分客户的忠诚度和满意度,从而确保医院主流利润和收入来源的长期性和稳定性。     

“What can I(S) do for you?”: How technology enables service providers to elicit customers’ preferences and deliver personalized service

This research studies the effective use of an IT-enabled Customer Service System (CSS) in the hospitality sector. Drawing on Effective Use Theory, we study how digital representations of customers’ preferences support service providers in the service personalization process. Our model posits customers’ preferences elicitation as the antecedent of CSS’ effective use, which yields superior customer value. This representational perspective matches recent efforts to study customer value as cocreated by customers and service providers. Based on a longitudinal dataset of 118,647 hotel reservations, we explain how digital representations of customers’ preferences enable service providers to personalize service and increase customer value.     

An Integrated Framework for Service Quality, Customer Value, Satisfaction: Evidence from China's Telecommunication Industry

Service quality, customer satisfaction and customer value have become the priority of both manufacturers and service provider in the increasingly intensified competition for customers in today's customer-centered era. However, findings regarding service quality, customer satisfaction and customer value are rather divergent and related studies are fragmented, especially for the complicated interrelationships among them. Thus, less is known about the relative impacts of quality-related factors on customer value and customer satisfaction up to now and the moderating role of customer value in the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction has been neglected. Further, it is very difficult to find related studies, supported by evidence, that focus on service quality, customer satisfaction and customer value, and their influences on customer behavior intentions in the telecommunication industry. In this paper, much attention is paid to the measurement model of service quality in China's mobile communication market based on the well-known SERVQUAL model, but with reasonable modification on the basis of focus group discussions and expert opinions to reflect the specific industry attributes and the special culture of China. By taking a disaggregated approach, the key drivers of service quality, customer value and customer satisfaction are first identified and the impact of customer perceived sacrifice on customer value is emphasized. Then attention is given to the systematic study of the dynamic relationships among them, especially the moderating effect of customer value on the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction, which is followed by the examination of their influences on behavior intentions of customers. Results are based on the development of structural equation models using Partial Least Square technique.     

Segmentation of telecom customers based on customer value by decision tree model

The more the telecom services marketing paradigm evolves, the more important it becomes to retain high value customers. Traditional customer segmentation methods based on experience or ARPU (Average Revenue per User) consider neither customers’ future revenue nor the cost of servicing customers of different types. Therefore, it is very difficult to effectively identify high-value customers. In this paper, we propose a novel customer segmentation method based on customer lifecycle, which includes five decision models, i.e. current value, historic value, prediction of long-term value, credit and loyalty. Due to the difficulty of quantitative computation of long-term value, credit and loyalty, a decision tree method is used to extract important parameters related to long-term value, credit and loyalty. Then a judgments matrix formulated on the basis of characteristics of data and the experience of business experts is presented. Finally a simple and practical customer value evaluation system is built. This model is applied to telecom operators in a province in China and good accuracy is achieved.     

Constructing online switching barriers: examining the effects of switching costs and alternative attractiveness on e-store loyalty in online pure-play retailers

Developing switching barriers to retain customers has become a critical marketing strategy for online retailers. However, research on the role of switching barriers in e-retailing is still limited. Recent trends show that when competitors are just one click away, it is questionable if customer loyalty can be achieved at all in online environments. This leads to the research question on whether switching barriers have any impact on e-loyalty in pure-play retailers. The paper examines the influence of switching barriers on customer retention (i.e., e-store loyalty) and further investigates the moderating effects of switching costs and alternative attractiveness. Data were gathered via a survey of 590 shoppers of online pure-play retailers in the UK. Findings show that customer satisfaction and the two dimensions of switching barriers (perceived switching costs and perceived attractiveness of alternatives) significantly influence customer loyalty. Contrary to findings in earlier studies, it was found that switching costs did not moderate the relationships between satisfaction and loyalty nor between perceived attractiveness of alternatives and loyalty. The paper makes imperative recommendations to develop switching barriers and to foster loyalty along with suggestions for future research.     

Conjoint analysis for IPTV service

Given the upcoming introduction of IPTV service in Korea, it is necessary to develop business models and marketing strategies to improve customer satisfaction and succeed in market competition. We use conjoint analysis to estimate customer preferences and the relative importance of service factors. Based on results from total customers’ and clustered customers’ service preferences, we propose marketing strategies for service providers.     

How does customer self-construal moderate CRM value creation chain?

Most of the existing literature on CRM value chain creation has focused on the effect of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty on customer profitability. In contrast, little has been studied about the CRM value creation chain at individual customer level and the role of self-construal (i.e., independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal) in such a chain. This research aims to construct the chain from customer value to organization value (i.e., customer satisfaction → customer loyalty → patronage behavior) and investigate the moderating effect of self-construal. To test the hypotheses suggested by our conceptual framework, we collected 846 data points from China in the context of mobile data services. The results show that customer’s self-construal can moderate the relationship chain from customer satisfaction to customer loyalty to relationship maintenance and development. This implies firms should tailor their customer strategies based on different self-construal features.     

What to do after a data breach? Examining apology and compensation as response strategies for health service providers

Innovative IT-enabled health services promise tremendous benefits for customers and service providers alike. Simultaneously, health services by nature process sensitive customer information, and data breaches have become an everyday phenomenon. The challenge that health service providers face is to find effective recovery strategies after data breaches to retain customer trust and loyalty. We theorize and investigate how two widely applied recovery actions (namely apology and compensation) affect customer reactions after a data breach in the specific context of fitness trackers. Drawing on expectation confirmation theory, we argue that the recovery actions derived from practice, apology, and compensation address the assimilation-contrast model’s tolerance range and, thus, always lead to satisfaction with the recovery strategy, which positively influences customers’ behavior. We employ an experimental investigation and collect data from fitness tracker users during a running event. In the end, we found substantial support for our research model. Health service providers should determine specific customer expectations and align their data breach recovery strategies accordingly.